TRANSFERRED WORKERS.

asked the Home Secretary what action is to be taken to make it possible for men transferred from mining areas to employment elsewhere to use their vote in the parliamentary division in which they are registered as voters at the general election this year?

In view of the fact that the policy of the Government in regard to unemployment is transference, and that that is the only policy, and that men are being transferred, will the right hon. Gentleman consider the possibility of issuing an Order which will make it possble for men who have been transferred to claim their votes up to Whitsuntide?

I cannot be taken for a moment as assenting to the suggestion that transference is the only policy—[An HON. MEMBER: "We know of no other Government policy."]—The hon. Member should read a little more. But I must confess that I cannot see my way to accede to the request. The difficulties would be enormous. Men are transferred from these districts to places all over the country, and there is no reason at all, to my mind, why a man who is transferred in this way should have privileges over and above the ordinary working man who travels about the country in the exercise of his vocation.

Of course, there is that possibility, but the same consideration applies to other people. We have now the shortest period of residence qualification that there is, I think, in any country in the world, and I cannot see my way to amend it. It would need an Act of Parliament to do it. There is no power vested in the Home Secretary to do it.

Does the Home Secretary not realise that thousands of miners, in particular, are being disfranchised in consequence of this state of affairs? Would it not be a simple matter to issue an Order extending to the end of March the period in which these people can apply to become absent voters, so that they can vote in their home towns, although working south of London? Unless he will do something of that kind, I think the Government are deliberately keeping these men—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech!"]